Exogenous Determinants of Hoarding Demand at Gold Spot Market
Introduction. Hoarding demand at gold spot market is mainly determined by non-price factors, which are divided into two large groups: endogenous, associated with the specifics of the functioning of the gold market, and exogenous, reflecting the processes and trends of the external environment relative to the gold market. The article analyzes the external non-price factors of demand for physical gold with hoarding purposes. Theoretical analysis revealed three groups of factors as exogenous determinants of hoarding demand for physical gold: military-geopolitical, financial-economic, natural-technological, the influence of which is set in each case by the prevailing configuration of exogenous determinants. The same exogenous determinants in different combinations can increase, reduce or maintain the hoarding demand at gold spot market. Empirical analysis included a comparison of three processes: changes in the gold reserve of a number of sovereign states, the volume of gold bullion in ETF vaults specializing in investments in this precious metal, and the gold reserves of the largest international financial organizations, with global trends in geopolitics and in the sphere of monetary credit relations, with the dynamics of the gold reference price in the period 2000–2019. This allowed us to conclude, firstly, that there is a dialectic connection between investment and hoarding demand at gold spot market and, secondly, about the possible interpretation of exogenous determinants as factors affecting the change in the usefulness of precious metals in new conditions, and, as a result, – transforming investment demand into hoarding demand. Results. Exogenous determinants that determine hoarding demand at gold spot market have a different nature, different manifestations, different power of influence on the behavior of market participants. Since the gold hoarding by some economic entities is accompanied by a “counter” process – the sale of previously accumulated gold reserves by other entities, the exogenous determinants of demand at gold spot market that determine the hoarding, at the same time, also determine gold dishoarding.
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